According to US President Biden, ‘brutal’ Putin should face trial for the Bucha killings

*Paromita Das

President Joe Biden called on Monday for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes and said he will seek additional sanctions against Russia in response to what he called “outrageous” atrocities in and around Kyiv.
According to one of the president’s top advisers, the Russians exacted a terrible toll before retreating “pell-mell” from the area around Ukraine’s capital to regroup for dangerous forays elsewhere.

“We have to gather all the detail” for a war crimes trial, Biden said, referring to one of the towns around Kyiv where Ukrainian officials say civilian bodies have been discovered. “This guy is brutal, and what’s going on in Bucha is outrageous, as everyone has witnessed.”
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, later reminded reporters that the US had released intelligence in the run-up to the Feb. 24 invasion, warning that Russia would seek to imprison or kill dissidents and others it saw as threats to its attempted occupation of Ukraine. The bleak scenes that have played out around the capital city show that his fears are being realized, he says.

“We do not believe this is a random accident or the rogue act of a single individual,” Sullivan said of the images of bound civilians who were killed. “This, we believe, was part of the plan.”
Biden made the allegations to reporters following a visit to Bucha by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where Ukrainian officials say bodies of civilians have been discovered in macabre scenes of brutality. Zelenskyy called Russia’s actions “genocide” and urged the West to impose tougher sanctions on the country.

However, Biden and other US officials stopped short of calling the actions genocide.

“We have seen atrocities, war crimes, but we have not yet seen systematic deprivation of life of the Ukrainian people rise to the level of genocide,” Sullivan said.

According to Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns recently retaken from Russian forces.
At least 21 bodies were discovered by Associated Press journalists in various locations around Bucha, northwest of the capital.

Sullivan warned that the world should “be prepared” for more potential war crimes revelations.

According to Sullivan, “the Russians have now realised that the West will not break” in its support for Ukraine’s government. He did, however, warn that Russia was redoubling its offensive in other parts of the country after withdrawing many troops from Kyiv.

Officials at the White House said discussions about imposing new sanctions on Russia intensified after reports of the alleged atrocities surfaced. Biden stated on Monday that the United States would continue to impose sanctions, but he did not specify which sectors would be targeted next. Sullivan stated that additional sanctions would be implemented this week.
Following the announcement of an avalanche of sanctions in the early weeks of the war, administration officials have focused their attention in recent days on closing loopholes that Russia may try to exploit in order to avoid sanctions.

Biden noted that he had faced backlash last month when he called Putin a war criminal for the onslaught in Ukraine that had resulted in the bombing of hospitals and maternity wards. In his remarks on Monday, Biden implied that the assessment had been validated.

Before the latest allegations of atrocities, investigations into Putin’s actions had begun.
Following the passage of a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry, the United States and more than 40 other countries are cooperating to investigate possible violations and abuses. Another investigation is being conducted by the International Criminal Court, an independent body based in the Netherlands. Last month, the United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling for investigations into Putin and elements of his government for war crimes in connection with the invasion of Ukraine.

According to State Department spokesman Ned Price, the US is assisting a multinational team of war crimes experts deployed to the region to assist Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s War Crimes Unit.
Following the latest revelations, Biden’s chief envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced Monday that the United States intends to seek a suspension of Russia’s seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body. This would necessitate a decision by the United Nations General Assembly.

Russia, as well as the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, China, France, and the United States – currently have seats on the 47-member rights council, which is based in Geneva. This year, the United States re-joined the Council.

“My message to the 140 countries that have bravely stood together is simple: the images coming out of Bucha and the devastation across Ukraine demand that we now match our words with action,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“We cannot allow a member state that violates every principle we hold dear to continue to sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council.”